Want to sit next to, oh, your children? But of course. We’d love to help. Give us more money.

How about Frontier Airlines, which offers these comforting words on its website: “We’ll try to keep your party together, but the only way to ensure that you’ll sit together is to select seats at time of booking”?

And, given that they’re trying to make seats narrower and closer together so they can pack more in, they certainly don’t care about your comfort.

They care about your money.

So the next time you hear a captain say how much the airline appreciates your business because it knows you have a number of choices, ask yourself whether the airline industry really offers you much choice at all.

Except to pay up, of course.

Only Congress can do something about this. But will it? Probably not. Members of Congress fly first class, don’t they?